Hi all - I am a veterinarian based in Perth, Western Australia. I spent much of my career as a zoo veterinarian but joined Wildlife Health Australia in 2022 as the Program Manager for Emergencies. My interests lie in emergency management for wildlife health, promoting and supporting One Health initiatives, and participating in wildlife health projects to support our unique Australian (and West Australian!) wildlife. In the emergency sphere I have experience in developing programs for oiled wildlife response, stranding and entanglements, and bushfires. I also have a long history working with orangutans and am a participant in the Orangutan Veterinary Advisory Group.
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Welcome Simone, glad to have you join us. Great you have a history working with orangutans, can you enlighten us about possible exposures you might have had working with them regarding any zoonotic infection?
I developed our staff zoonosis prevention program at the zoo I worked with. Over the years we had to manage one or two zoonotic outbreaks, such as strongyloides infection, but on the whole our orangutans were a very healthy bunch and we didnt have many zoonotic issues.
Thank you Simone, I would love to know what a zoonosis prevention program looks like and I'm equally hoping that you would find time to educate us on this platform so we can partake from your wealth of experience. I could go on and on with questions, good to know you had healthy orangutans. Once again you are welcome to our community.
Lovely to have you in the community Simone!
You're welcome Simone! Let's go together to save the health of wildlife and for the health of our planet too! Together in harmony
A warm welcome to our community, Simone! What was your main reason/goal for joining WildHub? This way, we can make sure that we can help you reach this goal.
Based on your introduction, you may be interested in connecting with our WildHub member @Olivia Walter who is Executive Director at Wildlife Vets International (WVI). Olivia organised a webinar session, as part of our WildHub Festival, about "What role does disease play in the conservation of threatened wildlife?" (recording here), which also includes an intro to WVI.